Development and validation of the workshop behavior checklist: A scale forassessing work performance of people with severe mental illness

The Workshop Behavior Checklist is a standardized assessment instrument to assess the work performance of people with severe mental illness using the situational assessment approach. It is modified from the Behavior Identific ation Form developed by the Material Development Center. The modification p rocess was conducted by enlisting input from mental health professionals (n = 150) and potential employers of discharged patients with mental illness (n = 31) by questionnaires specially designed for this purpose. The results of these questionnaires were then analyzed by an expert panel consisting o f 10 therapists and one psychiatrist working in relevant fields. Altogether 14 items in general behaviors, vocational behaviors, and social behaviors were selected. In addition, a new version of the checklist together with it s rating guidelines were designed. Exploratory factor analysis (n = 112) sh ows that all 14 items fit well into a four-factor model explaining 67.2% of total variance, which is in line with the original design of the revised c hecklist. Cronbach alpha analysis shows that the revised checklist has acce ptable to very good internal consistency (.51 to .84) and intraclass correl ation coefficients indicate that it has good to excellent inter-rater (.57 to .81) and test-retest (.86 to .94) reliability. Clinical implications and further research are discussed.